


The Greatest Vice

by Pic_Akai



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:57:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pic_Akai/pseuds/Pic_Akai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft's greatest vice is his need to touch. If Sherlock ever had any knowledge of boundaries, he's deleted it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greatest Vice

Mycroft arrives at the door of Sherlock’s dormitory room exactly at the time he’d planned; in this case, as soon as possible. He knows without checking that Sherlock will be alone because his roommate spends as much time as he can in other places; for example, this week he’s been sleeping on the floor in room number sixteen.

Mycroft understands perfectly what would drive an eighteen year old boy - who values sleep more highly than education - to refuse to sleep in his own bed unless it’s absolutely necessary. He understands, and yet it still pains him somewhere small and quiet inside, because it means that Sherlock is still as acerbic as ever, and therefore as alone as ever. Not that he was expecting anything else.

He opens the door. Sherlock hasn’t locked it, sure of the fact that no one would want to intrude into his domain even when given the chance. Mycroft, on the other hand, knows that to some, his presence is a stronger curiosity than the abhorrence of his brother, and unlike Sherlock, he doesn’t seek to take risks wherever he can. Even before allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom, he turns smartly around with the door still in hand, allows one point five seconds for a hard stare towards the lad hovering in his doorway across the corridor - one point five seconds is all it takes - and closes the door firmly, locking it in the next move.

When he turns around, his eyes go toward the bed - Sherlock's bed, that is. He knows his brother doesn't use it much, but sometimes he requires a less uncomfortable place to lie and think than the floor, which is littered with all manner of books and equipment and what Mycroft hopes is not a dead rabbit, but for once in his life doesn't want to find out. At the times when Sherlock does want to use the bed, whatever's on it usually gets ceremoniously swept to join the debris on the floor.

Currently, Mycroft is momentarily confused to note, the bed is clear. But too clear, for Sherlock is not in it.

Mycroft's gaze skims across the floor again, still purposefully ignoring the possibly dead rabbit, and he starts inwardly when he sees the hand attached to a thin pale wrist extending from the bathroom doorway. (Mycroft is rather proud of his inward start; he's been practising it for some years now and only really perfected it a month and six days ago. However, he reflects, this is not the time for self-congratulations.)

"Sherlock?" Mycroft says. He doesn't murmur, like he might if someone were ill or upset. Sherlock is both ill and upset, but Mycroft considers both these states to be of his own doing, and therefore finds empathy hard to come by. "Sherlock, you silly boy."

A small, ridiculous piece of Mycroft is pleased that it is his voice which makes Sherlock stir, when he knows the drug hasn't been in his system nearly long enough to have been metabolised, and the room has been quiet for over an hour. When Mycroft obtains his next promotion in approximately two months' time, he will be able to order for surveillance _in_ Sherlock's room, not just outside, supposed roommates and building rules be damned.

Until now, though, he's been forced to contend with essentially second-hand information, and this is why he's had to waste several precious seconds looking for his brother, instead of simply knowing where he is, which is the way it should be. Not that Mycroft considers these seconds precious because he fears for Sherlock's life, mind; only because he has better things to do with his time.

Mycroft pushes open the door with the tip of his umbrella to - barely, in the dim light - reveal Sherlock, sprawled on his side and looking utterly dishevelled. His hair, as usual, is practically a life form capable of making its own decisions. His shirt is half-untucked, the sleeves rolled and then pushed up just to above the elbows, but one has slid down again. There is an unsightly brown stain upon the thigh of Sherlock's charcoal grey suit trousers, and Mycroft sighs - that inwardly, too - for he knows those will need replacing, and he doesn't think the suit is still in production, so it will be a bother.

"Come, come now," Mycroft says sternly, pulling the cord for the light and then crouching down, laying the umbrella to rest on the wall. Crouching is hardly dignified, but then Sherlock is the only one to see, and he's hardly a model of poise himself at the current moment. Mycroft is faintly irritated to notice that he still manages to look artful, as though perhaps if one didn't know him and what he'd been doing, this could be misconstrued as an intentional modelling pose.

Mycroft has wondered, more than once, why Sherlock didn't take up modelling. He would drink in the attention without a whit of embarrassment. And he did so have the bone structure for it; unlike Mycroft, who had inherited their father's more sturdy frame. But it wasn't the sort of thing he felt like it was proper to bring up; at least not to Sherlock, who would surely mock him about the idea for months for some invented reason. Mycroft was well used to the mocking, but it did tend to rather slow their interactions down as he had to let Sherlock get it all out of his system before getting to the heart of a matter, and things were difficult enough as it was.

Sherlock hums, a low rumble in his chest. There is a pause, then his eyes snap open. They find Mycroft's, much more slowly than usual, though that's to be expected. "'croft?" The first syllable is more of a faint hum than anything intelligible. "Oh, go away." _That’s_ clear enough.

"Of course I'm not going to go away, my dear boy," Mycroft replies, his fingers seeking for the pulse in Sherlock's neck and pressing more firmly when his brother attempts to bat them away. "I didn't travel all the way from London just to see you weren't yet deceased."

"You know 'm not," Sherlock slurs, and it's slightly unnerving, because words which are normally so carefully chosen and then distinctly pronounced are just tumbling from his lips. Mycroft never likes to see him like this, but he believes it's more selfish than anyone else thinks. Mummy adores him for his everlasting patience with Sherlock and his insistence on taking care of him - as much as he is allowed to, which isn't much and certainly not enough. But Mycroft thinks that really, he doesn't do this for Mummy or for Sherlock. He does it because it upsets him somewhere deep inside to see his brilliant brother so carelessly wasted. He has but a finite amount of time upon the earth and currently he is wasting it, wasting far too much of it within the grip of opium or barbiturates or whatever else he decides is worth a try, rather than applying his mind or his body to the limits of their abilities, and then pushing. Sherlock does so like to push his limits, but in this he pushes the wrong way; sees how little he can get away with instead of how much. Mycroft doesn't like it.

"Exactly," Mycroft replies anyway, as though this were some normal idiot and not Sherlock. "So I came to ensure that you come no closer to doing so."

"I'm FINE," Sherlock growls, and Mycroft has to work to hold back the derisive snort that threatens to come forth at that.

He hooks his hands under Sherlock's shoulders and pulls. He may not spend as much time as Sherlock running about or making enemies which he then needs to get away from - Mycroft does make enemies, but he tends to make them far away, where someone else can deal with them - but he does occasionally find himself in need of a few good skills to do with weight transference. If Sherlock were more conscious than this Mycroft knows he'd be making a point here about Mycroft being able to shift Sherlock's weight yet not his own, but he isn't and Mycroft does not think about it. He doesn't hone his skills the way Sherlock does, sweaty in a vest in the middle of a gym, both warning people away and drawing them closer with his attacks at the punch bag, but takes his exercises alone in his basement, working up a steady and controlled flush where no one can see, then bringing it down again before he leaves.

"Upsy-daisy!" Mycroft trills, as he resettles his grip and hefts Sherlock determinedly backwards, towards the bed. He is very aware of how ridiculous he sounds and wouldn't dream of saying it if there were anyone else here but them, but he does so precisely because he knows it will annoy Sherlock, and however otherwise abnormal their relationship might be, brothers were put upon this earth to annoy one another. Sherlock in particular plays that role, at least, to the best of his ability. Mycroft is usually too busy trying to play the role of protector to do much in the way of irritating his little brother, but when he sees a chance, he takes it. He'd be a fool not to.

He knows the only reason Sherlock doesn't fight him in the manoeuvre is because Sherlock knows if he did, Mycroft would happily drop him wherever they happened to be. The state of the floor by now - Mycroft knows the cleaners have been refusing to enter for the last six weeks - is such that Sherlock doesn't want to risk that, even if it's less about any pain which might occur and more to do with disturbing his 'filing system'.

Mycroft feels his knees hit the back of the bed and pauses before giving a final tug, and presently he is on his back, Sherlock's weight on top of him. He fully expects to have to remain here for some time. While Sherlock may not have been intending to move for several hours while Mycroft wasn't here, his brother's presence seems to act as a catalyst to induce him to attempt frankly ridiculous things, like jumping out of windows, simply to prove he can. Sherlock believes he can master the drug - any drug - at any time should he wish. Mycroft knows he only takes them because he needs to feel out of control every now and then. It can't be easy, being as much of a control freak as Sherlock is.

It irritates Mycroft that his presence is what causes Sherlock to become even more dangerous to himself, yet he can't stay away. He needs to know that when it gets this bad - no complaints about Sherlock from the other residents for three days, and then an hour's silence - Sherlock is not alone. It's not really about keeping him safe from further harm; he doesn't believe his brother to be suicidal, at least not in such an obvious manner. It's more because he needs to prove to himself, to Sherlock, to everyone, that Sherlock is not alone. He is lonely, oh yes, of that there is no doubt. But Mycroft refuses to let him be alone as well.

Mycroft toes his shoes off, attempting to get more comfortable. They thud to the floor. Mycroft's grace is learned, and sometimes it deserts him - like now, when he is hooking one big toe under the edge of the opposite sock in order to remove it. Sherlock's grace, of course, is innate, and he settles himself down into Mycroft's body and the space between his legs as though he were just a large cat. Mycroft sees more similarities there - selfishness, for one - but doesn't comment.

It appears that today Sherlock has decided it's not worth fighting. Perhaps their last fracas, two months and fourteen days ago, during which between them they broke a lamp and two beakers and created that awful mark on the wall - the one which, Mycroft notes, is now covered with a poster of the periodic table, as though Sherlock hasn't known it off by heart for more than a decade - gave him reason enough to believe that struggling would only end with the drug's effects wearing off earlier than he'd expected them to.

Mycroft's toes are now bare and he is higher up the bed than Sherlock, so they come to rest just where the hem of Sherlock's trousers ends. Sherlock, too, is bare footed, because, as he had explained irritatedly once at the age of seven, "I don't believe in socks alone. They are the inner linings of shoes. If shoes aren't necessary, neither are socks," which Mycroft supposed at the time - and still does - that it was Sherlock's way of saying that he appreciates a fine carpet. He had always made sure it was one of the things he controlled in Sherlock's life, as far as possible, and while Sherlock made noises about the Savile Row suits - though he wore them - he never once complained about the soft, thick rugs which appeared to match the colour scheme of wherever he was living at the time. Mycroft knew there was one somewhere underneath all of the clutter on the floor, but also that it was probably there because it was due for renewal. Sherlock was precise with measurements, always, but tended to be rather careless with leftover chemicals, as a hole in the quilt next to Mycroft's left elbow attested to.

So the fact that Mycroft is bare footed and so is Sherlock is what leads Mycroft, almost absently, to allow his toes to stroke softly up and down the length of Sherlock's foot. This is his greatest vice, and the one which he finds it hardest to control.

None of their family has ever been very demonstrative through touch. Mummy gives airy kisses and not-quite-there hugs at birthdays and Christmas, and since they were old enough to leave home for weeks at a time - six was considered old enough for Mycroft - when they returned to the family abode. Father gave stiff handshakes alongside hard-won, "Congratulations." Sherlock used to grab at him a lot, but that was only ever because he needed Mycroft's help, whether it was to reach him the magnesium down from a high shelf or to stand there and be amazed at what Sherlock had learnt. Sherlock hadn't needed that in longer than Mycroft cared to remember. Mycroft had always needed it.

Sherlock thought that his overindulgence with food was because he enjoyed it too much. He was wrong. It was a substitute for something else, but it hadn't started off like that. As a young boy, Mycroft used to spend far more time than was considered decent in the kitchen, alongside the cook. She was a huge woman, a mother herself of grown-up children, and she laughed all day long, even when Father went into one of his rages and threatened to sack all of the staff. Mycroft thought of her as a complete caricature of a cook, and he adored her for it. She gave him much of the touch he felt starved of. She hugged with her whole soul if he looked even the slightest bit upset. She put a floury hand on top of his head whenever he entered, and he took quickly to factoring in enough time to wash and dry his hair before his nanny saw him again and scolded him, instead of simply asking her not to. She would stand behind him, Mycroft on a stool, and guide his hands with hers through the kneading of dough. She also fed him far too many little bits and pieces here and there, and these days food was what reminded him of touch, rather than being the desire in itself.

Sherlock fancied himself the most different of their family - and indeed, of the human race - but Mycroft could see how both of them were so different, and both so interminably similar.

The skin of Sherlock's forearms lies beneath Mycroft's fingertips, and Sherlock hasn't made a noise about his feet yet. Mycroft doesn't think Sherlock is so comfortable this close because he wants the closeness. He knows he is the only one in their family who craves that. Sherlock just sees him as part of the furniture, in the same way a heavily autistic person would do. Except with autism, there was no measure of choice about it. Sherlock was fully aware that Mycroft was as much of a human being as he was, and worthy of respect and kindness and all those other supposedly altruistic feelings. He just didn't care.

Well, Mycroft gets tired of thinking of others so often, too. Especially thinking of Sherlock. So he lets his fingers run slowly up and down Sherlock's arms - first just the tips, then a full finger, then all of them. Then his entire hands, greedily soaking up the feel of skin and warmth and another person.

Neither of them makes a noise for several minutes. Mycroft is almost in heaven, palms and fingers and thumbs coasting up and down long, pale limbs. His toes, too, curling into the almost translucent skin of Sherlock's feet. He feels the bones in the ankles, presses harder to exert pressure upon the ligaments. Mycroft knows he would have been excellent at surgery - as at most things - but he couldn't have handled it, having to be so precise and careful, so close to all that skin and blood and bone and life and just wanting to envelop it, to hold it close and never let it go, rather than to make efficient, unemotional cuts with instruments, before sending someone away without so much as a squeeze of the hand.

Mycroft hates this weakness of his. He hates it, because it is so difficult to marry with all of the rest of him. So usually he does not indulge, save for brief handshakes. He can get away with those because he's British, undeniably so. What the people he meets don't know is that he wants so much more, and if he were to allow himself a hug or even, heaven forbid, a peck on the cheek, he would be overcome with the need to take more, and his intellectual talents would be nigh-on inaccessible then.

At this moment, he has nothing else to do and nowhere else to be for at least another hour or more, and Sherlock isn't running this time. He doesn't need to apply himself to that problem, so he revels in the feeling instead of life under his hands and feet. The weight on top of him, too, while none too light - Sherlock may be positively anorexic sometimes, but he is still taller than Mycroft - is welcome.

Mycroft could never be a killer. He can easily order someone else to do the deed - he has done, though he'd never be either so crass or so foolish as to admit it - but he could not, himself, take the ultimate action to end another person's life, to stop their heart from moving the blood around the body and to let their skin grow cold and grey. It would feel like a betrayal to himself. It wouldn't be about them; some people are better off dead, after all. He just couldn't be the one to end the potential of their being someone to touch, even if it were never going to happen.

Sherlock's hum starts low in his chest and rumbles upwards so slowly that Mycroft barely notices it. When he does, he smiles. Sherlock would sound like some sort of machinery, were it not for the fact that machinery could not sound quite so pleased. Mycroft isn't sure that is brother is happy, per se, but he is here with Mycroft, with drugs slowly making their way through his system, and not running, and allowing Mycroft to touch him and not complaining, and Mycroft thinks that's probably the best he'll get. Sherlock never says thank you, never admits that anything his older brother does is anything less than supremely irritating, but then he never does so to anyone else, either, and Mycroft thinks this is as good as that.

Sherlock moves so suddenly that Mycroft isn't ready for it. He does hate to be surprised; it happens so infrequently that he's still not quite got used to the feeling. But there is another shock in store for him immediately upon the heels of that one, because Sherlock doesn't jump up - he simply turns, on top of Mycroft, and lays down again facing him. And his pupils are blown wide, but Mycroft doesn't know if that's a result of the drug, because there is also an unmistakably erect penis pressing into his hip.

"Sherlock," Mycroft breathes, half a laugh and half an admonishment, and none of it sounds at all like him. He takes a moment to be irritated with himself.

"Mycroft," Sherlock replies, and this time his voice and his tone are very deliberate, Mycroft knows. The word rumbles through both their chests, comes to rest at the base of Mycroft's throat, and it sounds like someone offering him themselves to him for as much touching as he desires.

Perhaps it is.

" _My_ -croft," Sherlock repeats, the emphasis different and still intentional, and Mycroft controls his breathing consciously. Slow exhale. Slow inhale - slower than that, please, lungs. Sherlock is watching him.

Neither of them speaks. Mycroft concentrates on his breathing, aware Sherlock is cataloguing it to ridicule him for later. He can't afford not to, though. For once in his life, he honestly doesn't know what to do. He knows what he _should_ do - extricate himself from this ludicrous position, admonish his brother for being so hedonistic, smooth his suit down and leave in an air of annoyance.

He doesn't.

Of course he doesn't. Because he can't. He has this body atop him, willing to let him touch, though he's still not entirely sure quite how, or why, and he is a weak man and he cannot walk away from it.

Slowly, he lifts his hands from where they've come to rest on the bed, and places them once more on Sherlock's arms. The moment they touch, Sherlock presses his hips down, driving heat into Mycroft's body. Mycroft feels it, his own blood rushing south in a determined manner, and logic tries to step in and ask, "What are you doing, old boy? Are you mad?" but emotion and feeling and _need_ are too far in control at this point, and he presses back with equal fervour.

Sherlock exhales, suddenly, and that's another surprise. This one, Mycroft likes. He is here in a bed with his brother and they're rutting against one another, Mycroft's hands going everywhere. Sherlock is coming undone and maybe some of that is due to the drug, and Mycroft really doesn't want to think about that, but most of it he thinks is down to him. He runs now sweaty palms up the back of Sherlock's shoulders and allows his hands to rest on the back of his neck, gripping maybe a bit more tightly than is comfortable. He doesn't care.

Sherlock doesn't seem to, either. He makes a noise, one which Mycroft supposes could be categorised as a grunt, but that sounds wrong when referring to Sherlock. Whatever one calls it, it makes his blood pound faster. This is wrong and ridiculous and entirely inappropriate and _Mycroft is getting off on it_.

His hands move up to tangle in Sherlock's improbable mess of hair, and he exerts a little pressure upon the head, perhaps to see what will happen. What happens is that Sherlock's head drops so that his face is buried in Mycroft's neck, and that means his lips are touching it, and he begins to move them, precisely and entirely uncontrolled, with a little bit of tongue, licking and sucking his way along the skin of Mycroft's neck.

If Mycroft believed hell existed, he'd think the fact that he was most definitely going there would be worth it for this.

Sherlock is insinuating a hand between their bodies, and Mycroft realises rather more sluggishly than usual that he's trying to undo his trousers, the charcoal grey ones Mycroft bought because he knew they'd look best with this winter's coat, the ones with the suspicious brown stain on them because Mycroft's brother is a thrill-seeker and a risk-taker. Mycroft had rather thought himself to be more controlled than that, but he wonders whether it might be time to reassess that notion.

Then he decides that now is mostly definitely not the time, because Sherlock has managed to undo the trousers, has pulled his erection out through the opening of his silk boxer shorts - Mycroft bought those, too - and is taking Mycroft's hand in his and pushing it into said erection.

Mycroft's heart almost stops. Sherlock is sucking at the pulse point in his neck, apparently determined to leave a vivid bruise. His brother's penis is in his hand - and no, penis sounds far too unemotional, sounds wrong for the situation. This is nothing like when Sherlock was four and he was sick enough that he couldn't stand up and direct the flow of his urine at the same time, but refused to sit down, so Mycroft insisted on helping (he sat down, the next time).

What was that word other people used, when they were describing situations such as this? Ah yes, cock. That's it. His brother's cock is in his hand, and he wants to touch it, wants to feel everything, but it seems too much, somehow. As though everything before this has been acceptable but this is crossing a boundary.

Sherlock has no knowledge of boundaries - or if he ever did, he's deleted it. With a tiny growl into Mycroft's neck, he wraps his hand around Mycroft's and guides it, applying pressure on the shaft and dragging it up, then down. It's much rougher than Mycroft likes when he does this to himself, but then this is Sherlock, so it's not surprising. Sherlock uses his fingers to guide Mycroft's thumb to the tip of his cock, and they press down, smearing pre-ejaculate across the glans.

Mycroft's other hand is wrapped in Sherlock's hair, nails digging into his head. It must be painful. Neither of them cares. Mycroft feels the change in Sherlock's erection - and his breathing - which signifies that he's going to come. He grips a shade tighter, twists his wrist on the upstroke, and Sherlock's mouth opens against his neck, a moan breaking free as he ejaculates all over the front of Mycroft's trousers.

Mycroft is not able to be annoyed because seconds later, he ejaculates all over the inside of his trousers. He hasn't done that since he was thirteen. He never saw the need to do so. Today it feels glorious.

He lets his hand fall from Sherlock's grasp to rest next to him. Mycroft is hot, far too hot in his entirely unsuitable suit, and with a sated Sherlock resting now more heavily atop him than before, somehow. Perhaps, Mycroft wonders as his higher brain functions begin to come back online, that weight is more to do with guilt than body mass.

In for a penny, in for a pound, Mycroft thinks, and he shifts just enough so that he can press a kiss to Sherlock's hair. Sherlock doesn't respond, and Mycroft stares at the ceiling for not very long before sleep claims him.

* * * * *

When he awakes, Sherlock is gone. Mycroft climbs carefully out of bed, knowing without looking that Sherlock isn't in the bathroom, and makes a trip there himself in a futile attempt to make himself look decent. He studies the stain on his trousers distastefully for a moment or two, then dabs at it a bit with a wet flannel.

He leaves shortly after, and doesn't see Sherlock for another month and a half. They exchange texts, of course, as Sherlock won't use the phone, but that's just really idle thoughts, not communication at all. When they do meet, it's Mummy's birthday, and Mycroft honestly believes for most of the evening that Sherlock has somehow managed to delete the entire memory of their coupling. Perhaps he should have done that, too, but it was so difficult when the mere thought of what they'd done and a few cursory strokes could have him coming within minutes. Despite that decadent afternoon, Mycroft was still starved for touch, and if his own was all he could safely get, that's what he would take.

But then at the end of the evening when Sherlock is leaving, he places a hand on the back of Mycroft's neck, squeezes for a second before letting it drift down his back. Mycroft supposes, as Sherlock steps out into the night, that it's an invitation for the future, should he wish to accept.

Even when logic is very firmly in control and emotion's surface has barely been scratched, Mycroft can't say he doesn't want to.

**Author's Note:**

> I adore concrit.


End file.
